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DriveNets Introduces Network Cloud Model of the Future for Service Providers

Service providers have always faced the challenge of delivering new services to increase revenue, remain competitive, and meet customer needs. Today, with the unprecedented advances in device and network capabilities, that need is intensified, with the added concern that customers are less tolerant of increased costs. It requires a new model for service providers.

Having won a $100 million round of funding to bring its solution to market, DriveNets says it has the answer – a software-based Network Cloud that it says is the world’s first true cloud-native disaggregated router.

The solution is designed to disrupt existing models by running on cost-effective white boxes delivering carrier-grade reliability. The idea is a simpler and much less expensive alternative to traditional carrier network equipment. As they need to increase capacity to meet an ever-increasing appetite for consumption, continually investing in hardware works against profit growth. By leveraging DriveNets’ shared networking, operators have instant access to increased capacity without having to invest in costly new hardware and allows them to increase ARPU without increasing subscriber costs.

DriveNets says its Network Cloud “disconnects network cost from capacity growth and allows communication service providers (CSPs) to handle skyrocketing demand without sacrificing profitability. Network Cloud radically simplifies network operations, as it can create any network function from the same software stack and only two generic hardware building blocks. And since the entire infrastructure is software-centric, Network Cloud accelerates new service rollouts at full network scale.”

The benefits to service providers include:

Lower cost-per-bit by reducing CAPEX by 50%,

Lower OPEX through simplification and automation,

Commoditized hardware and avoiding vendor lock-in,

Unlimited network scalability, and

Increased resiliency and security.

“DriveNets’ Network Cloud does to service provider networks what Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have done to compute and storage in data centers,” says Aaron Mankovski, Managing General Partner at Pitango Growth, who joins the company’s Board of Directors. “It creates a unified shared networking resource that can deliver any service on any port – and at any scale.”

If the analogy to the cloud giants is anywhere near accurate, DriveNets is in a position to disrupt the networking industry and create the model of the future. DriveNets’ co-founder and CEO Ido Susan believes that is the case and the message to operators is clear: reduce costs while increasing capacity.

“We've challenged many of the assumptions behind traditional routing infrastructures and created a technology that will allow service providers to address their biggest challenges, like exponential capacity growth, 5G deployments and low-latency AI applications,” says Susan.

Founded in 2015, the company has been self-funded until now and, with a North American Tier 1 operator on board as a customer, will now focus on growth as it looks to expand into the global service provider market.

Web-scale Networking

The idea of Web-scale IT is more than just another 'hot' buzzword or problematic disruption. What started with data center operators has become mainstream thinking in large enterprises, and it's now driving changes in service provider operations, as well. Web-scale tools that allow application development to move quickly have also created some challenges for service provider networks.